A Heads Up War Stragedy

You and I are enemies, and you've got my forces under siege. I'm fortified in my impregnable fort on Alcatraz Island and you're attacking me from the pier 39 shoreline. Your forces outnumber mine by 36,000 men, but my position in the bay is strong. We've both taken prisoners of each other's captured men.

After weeks of attacking and losing many men you decide to try a strategy that will dampen the spirits of my remaining fighting force. You take fifty of my men you've captured, chop off their heads, strap their headless bodies to makeshift wooden crosses and float them over to the Alcatraz beachfront for my remaining men to see.

You're confident this act of butchery will send a message of defeat to my remaining men.

I decide the only way to combat your psychological warfare's effects on my men is to return butchery with butchery. I order the chopping off of a hundred prisoners (captured soldiers of yours) heads. I have my men then place these heads in our cannons and fire them at your positions on pier 39.

When your fighting men realize that the exploding debris raining down on them at pier 39 is not cannon ball fodder, but head chunks of captured comrades, it is they whose morale is defeated.

Eventually, my allies arrive to help finish off your army and the threat is gone.

Well, some story isn't it? Guess what? It actually happened. Not here in the bay area but on the Island of Malta back in 1565 (Great Siege of Malta). Imagine being shot at with a cannon loaded with the head of your army buddy. It is said that the heads exploded usually on impact, but some landed in one piece and were recognizable.

Now THAT my friend, is War.